extinctions

“Face up to the fact that the Liberal, Labor and Green Parties are not going to move on this issue on anything other than the point of an electoral gun, and conduct ourselves accordingly.” We have to deal with the magic pudding myth which says the world's poor can achieve western standards of living that people living in western countries will be able to more or less maintain their standards of living, that we can maintain our current rate of population growth, and we can protect the environment. It is a lie. You've heard Al Gore talking about climate change and inconvenient truth? Well, this is a convenient lie. It enables environmental groups to duck the population issue, but it is a monstrous and deceitful lie. Researchers who've looked at this say there could be a European standard of living for everyone, with sustainable use of our natural resources, provided the earth's population was no more than two billion. Kelvin also suggests that we ask political candidates if they would support Australia sponsoring a population treaty at the United Nations that committed each country to stabilising its own population. (Speech made at SPA Brisbane Seminar 27 April 2019).

Text for speech: The Political Impasse - Where To From Here?

Speech to Sustainable Population Australia National Conference Saturday 27 April 2019.

My first response to the question “Where to from here” is that we need to seize the high moral ground. Now in the political party which I was a member of for over 40 years, there is a saying “In the race of life, always back the horse called self-interest. It doesn’t always win, but it always gives you a bloody good run for your money”.

And because population stability would serve so many Australians, particularly younger ones, better than rapid population growth, it is indeed very tempting for us to pitch our arguments in that direction. But the population debate is not fundamentally a debate about putting a few more dollars in people’s pockets. It is a debate about values. It is a debate about what kind of world we are going to live in, and what kind of world we are going to pass on to our children.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick to death of commentators and social media smart alecs trying to paint anyone who raises the issue of population as racist or selfish. The opposite is the truth, and we should unashamedly claim the high moral ground.

In August it will be ten years since I first advanced in the Federal Parliament two propositions - that the world had a population problem, and that Australia has a population problem.

As that tenth anniversary approaches I have reflected on what has been achieved since then, and the short answer is, not much. There are few signs of a shift towards population stability and sustainability either globally or here in Australia, and the debate about population continues to be dominated by the greed of the political right, and the vanity of the political left.

But to get a clearer perspective on the population issue, I prefer to go back not 10 years to 2009, but 50 years to 1969. In the summer of 69 Bryan Adams was playing his guitar till his fingers bled. And I was a teenager getting interested in the environment and politics. My father and I got involved in the campaign to save the Little Desert and the Lower Glenelg River in Victoria from being cleared for agriculture.

That successful campaign saw the establishment of the Victorian Land Conservation Council. It was a time that seemed to me to mark the establishment of the modern conservation movement, not just in Victoria, but in many other parts of the world.

I had a very rosy view of the future. I thought Australia’s pioneers had made a lot of environmental mistakes, but we were learning from those mistakes, and in future we were going to properly protect our unique and beautiful birds, plants and animals.

I had a pretty rosy view about everything else, too. I thought that not only were we lifting our environmental game, but that EVERYTHING would get better.

Yes we were involved in a stupid war in Vietnam, but I thought that that the Second World War and the Holocaust committed on the Jewish people was so wicked and so evil that we had learned from that. That there was an appetite for peace. That war and conflict would become a thing of the past, and things would continue to get better and better.

So what has actually happened in the last 50 years? The world’s population has more than doubled - 3.6 billion back then, 7.7 billion now. Australia’s population has also more than doubled - from 12 and a quarter million then to 25 million now.

The effect of this on the world’s wildlife has been nothing short of catastrophic. The latest WWF Living Planet Report says that since 1970, 60% of the population of all mammals, birds, reptiles and fish has been lost. 60% in less than 50 years!

This is terrible, it is a disgrace, and it makes an absolute mockery of the idea that we’re decoupling growth from environmental damage- that we can continue to grow, and our wildlife won’t disappear. Let me repeat - in the last 50 years our numbers went up by over 50%, and the world’s wildlife went down by 60%.

Co-incidence? Hardly. As has been noted by The Overpopulation Project, the total weight of vertebrate land animals 10,000 years ago was - Humans 1%, Wild Animals 99%. Today it is the Wild Animals that are the 1%. Humans are 32%, and our livestock are 67%.

So in my view there are two aspects to claiming the high moral ground. The first is to focus on this environmental havoc and destruction. Part of this should include being involved in the climate change debate. For example, the 2018 Victorian Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report shows total net greenhouse gas emissions went up by 7% between 1990 and 2016. Transport emissions went up by 39%, due to an increase in the number of passenger vehicles by over 70,000 each and every year.

The report explicitly noted that “population growth is an important driver of emissions trends in a number of sectors and sub sectors”.

So Victoria’s rapid population growth of over 100,000 each year fatally undermines all the good work being done by Government Departments and agencies, Councils, business, community groups, families and individuals to reduce our greenhouse emissions. It is indeed pretty hard to reduce your carbon footprint when you keep adding more feet.

We need to cultivate a knowledge and love of the natural world. We should be demanding that environmental education be taught in schools, and that our children are given contact with nature. People will value and protect what they know and love, and the level of ecological ignorance and illiteracy in the year 2019 is frightening.

Dr Harry Recher says we need to act as if other species mattered as much as our own, and accept that we have a moral responsibility to share resources with other species, rather than sacrificing other species for pointless human aggrandisement. The ultimate goal of human societies is not ever more economic activity or the heaping up of endless wealth, but creating communities that allow their members to live good lives.

Dr Recher calls out the failure of the modern environmental movement to address overpopulation. He says that for the most part Australia’s environmental groups fail to discuss population matters, leaving Australia’s population policy to be made by greedy businessmen and politicians lacking in environmental concern. He says we need more discussion of population matters, not less.

I also agree with Dr Freya Mathews, who says that taking biodiversity preservation as the central goal of conservation sets the bar too low. Preventing species from becoming extinct is too modest.

Conservationists want to preserve abundant, wild nature. When we get to the point where our children will only see a platypus or a bandicoot in a zoo or a cartoon, or we’re down to our last few hundred lions and tigers, being restricted to isolated disconnected refuges, more and more of which are gated, high security compounds, then we’ve pretty much lost the plot.

To its great credit, Zoos Victoria has an Extinction Denied Program that includes captive breeding Orange Bellied Parrots. However some of the Parrots can’t get enough feed in the wild to get the strength to fly across Bass Strait to Tasmania, which is Orange-bellied Parrot custom and practice. So Qantas has been flying them across in planes. It feels like life imitating art, where Air New Zealand commercials star a white duck flying by plane across the Tasman.

Now I give full marks to Zoos Victoria and Qantas for their efforts and commitment, but when the birds need a plane to get across Bass Strait, this is not nature in all its beauty and awe-inspiring diversity, these are pathetic splintered remnants of a world we’ve laid waste to.

Dr Mathews says we have to concede that wild animals are, like sovereign peoples, entitled to their territories and ecological estates. The biosphere was shaped by wildlife as much as it was shaped for us and by us, and belongs to them as much as it belongs to us. We have no right to dispossess wild things of their ranges or degrade their environment to the point where it can no longer sustain them.

So we need to seize the high moral ground by focusing on the state of the environment. The 15000 scientists from 184 countries who issued the World Scientists Warning to Humanity in 2017 said we are jeopardising our future “by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats”. They said “By failing to adequately limit population growth, ....humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere”.

One immediate aspect of this, which I encourage you to contact your election candidates and representatives about during this election campaign and indeed beyond, is vegetation cover or tree canopy cover. We need our trees and plants and grasses. It’s not just an environmental question, it’s a public health one. The good news is that drones and satellite imagery and the like enable vegetation cover to be monitored with a degree of precision we’ve never had before. The bad news is that our vegetation canopy cover is declining. So I urge you to contact your political representatives and candidates and ask them to commit to maintaining, and where possible increasing, the vegetation canopy cover in your electorate, on both public and private land. People simply have to stop bulldozing and chopping trees and shrubs down. It has to stop.

The second aspect of seizing the high moral ground is to put population in a global context. Much of our discussion focuses on Australia, as it should, but it seems to me that (a) unless there is action in other countries, no matter what we do in Australia the world is still going to go to hell in a handbasket, and (b) much of our credibility and moral authority comes from taking the global view.

We need to build alliances with like minded people in other countries, and particularly build alliances across religious and ethnic divides.

An important aspect of focussing on the issue of rapid global population growth is that there is a magic pudding myth which is implicit in much of the political debate, including from politicians and activists from the left, who really ought to know better. It goes like this -
The world’s poor can achieve Western standards of living
People living in western countries will be able to more or less maintain their standards of living
We can maintain our current rate of population growth
We can protect our environment.

It’s a lie. You’ve heard Al Gore talking about climate change as an inconvenient truth; well this is a convenient lie. It enables environmental groups to duck the population issue. But it is a monstrous and deceitful lie. In 2010 a group of researchers who studied this question in depth estimated that there could be a European standard of living for everyone, with sustainable use of our natural resources, provided the earth’s population was no more than 2 billion.

In 2013 Theodore Lianos estimated that we could maintain ecological equilibrium, and all have a per capita annual income of $11,000, with a global population of 2.5 billion or less. If the population is larger than 2.5 billion, which of course it is, ecological and social equilibrium requires lower standards of living.

Like the environmental question, there are ways of raising the global population issue in the current Federal Election and beyond. There has been some great work done by Rob Harding promoting the idea of a United Nations Global Population Stabilisation Treaty. This seems to me to have a lot of potential. Indeed it should be much easier to reach agreement around the idea of each country stabilising it’s own population, than to get agreement around emissions reductions targets in the Climate Change talks, where of course serious questions of global equity and historical legacies arise.

I encourage you to contact your candidates and elected representatives, during the election campaign or beyond, and ask them - “Would you support Australia sponsoring a Population Treaty at the United Nations that committed each country to stabilising its own population?”

We also need to talk about fertility. If you think talking about migration is tough, try talking about fertility in a culture that views pregnancy and childbirth as an unmitigated blessing. But right around the world it has to happen, and indeed some countries or communities have had success with “Two is Enough” type campaigns.

After taking the high moral ground through a focus on the environment and global population growth, we need to acknowledge that neither the Liberal Party, the Labor Party or the Greens is going to do anything serious about this issue except at the point of an electoral gun. This is a very hard thing for me to say. I have spent a lifetime in the Labor Party - I think I attended over a thousand Branch Meetings! - and in many ways I still love the Labor Party.

But these parties, until further notice, are all about suppressing and killing off this issue by any means or devices they can come up with. We need a non-racist party that takes a firm line on population and migration. That is why I have joined the Sustainable Australia Party. It has no time for racists or racism. It believes in the non-discriminatory migration policy. It is a party of the centre. Unlike populist parties of the right like One Nation, it believes in strong action on climate change and to protect the environment. It believes in strong gun laws. It believes in action to tackle indigenous disadvantage.

But it doesn’t accept the trebling of Australia’s migration program which started about 15 years ago. We want to return the program from the 200,000 per annum it is now to 70,000, which is where it used to be - in the Whitlam years and the Keating years it was actually lower than that.

So in conclusion - the question I was asked to answer was “where to from here?” First, seize the high moral ground with a focus on the environment and global population issues. Second, push elected representatives with challenging but not unreasonable asks like maintenance of our remaining vegetation cover, and support for a global population treaty. And third, face up to the fact that the Liberal, Labor and Greens Parties are not going to move on this issue at anything other than the point of an electoral gun, and conduct ourselves accordingly.

And as for the question this Forum asks - “what future do we want for Australia?” - the future I want is one in which my children, and their generation, have the same job security and opportunity we had, and can afford a post secondary education and a house with a garden and the chance to see owls and platypus in the wild the way we could. Oh, and the Orange-bellied Parrots can fly across Bass Strait without a boarding pass.

Almost half of Australia's terrestrial ecosystems are threatened, 85 per cent of its rivers have been modified and twice as many Australians die from air pollution annually than road accidents, according to a report on the state of the country's environment.

42 environmental growth have cooperated to bring us this damning report, and hopefully will be a wake-up call that we are living beyond our means, and must change.

SMH: Australia's environment is going backwards

Places you Love . One cannot ignore the irony of the title of the report, that we "love" these unique Australian places, that many of us hold dear to us from childhood, holidays and where we live, but also destroy with wanton cruelty and reckless haste.

The introduction to this report states that:
More than 85% of rivers in Australia have been modified due to irrigation, dams other development pressures.
Of the sixty-eight zones of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s most significant agricultural region, only one zone is rated in good health. Thirty-eight zones are rated in poor health and twenty-one in very poor health.

Ongoing impacts of development and disturbance and the projected impacts of climate change will result in further decline of freshwater resources. Almost one-third of the 851 nationally important wetlands in Australia do not have adequate water supply or flow to maintain their health.

It's an abysmal state of affairs, similar to the wreckage and mess left by the punters and party-goers after Melbourne Cup day at Flemington!
The party is over, and there's few people cleaning up the "mess" of environmental devastation!

Places You Love is landmark survey of Australia’s environment – our rivers, energy, climate, food, forests, waste and pollution, land management, oceans and reefs.

Climate change

We will likely see four degrees of warming by the end of this century.
Two degrees of climate warming will likely mean the loss of most coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef, 80% of freshwater wetlands from Kakadu National Park, and Queensland’s tropical forests.

Air Pollution

More than 3,000 Australians die each year from air-pollution-related illness, nearly twice the national road toll.
Each Australian family contributes enough rubbish each year to fill a three-bedroom house from floor to ceiling, and the total amount of waste generated in the future is projected to increase.

Oceans

Since 1985 more than half of the coral cover of the Great Barrier Reef has been lost. Remaining coral cover is predicted to be lost with two degrees warming through climate change. Ocean acidification, a consequence of rising anthropogenic CO2 emissions, is poised to change marine ecosystems profoundly by increasing dissolved CO2 and decreasing ocean pH, carbonate ion concentration, and calcium carbonate mineral saturation state worldwide.

Feral animals and plants

Invasive species have significantly contributed to extinctions in most regions of Australia,including more than 40 native mammals, birds and frogs.

Habitat Change

We cleared an average of 1 million hectares of native vegetation per year between 2000 and 2010. At least 50% of all wetlands in Australia have been drained, filled or destroyed.
1259 plants, 396 animals and 67 ecological communities are listed as threatened by the Australian Government.

Destruction and fragmentation of habitats are major factors in the global decline of species, the modification of native plant and animal communities and the alteration of ecosystem functions. We are a leading nation when it comes to extinction, and our unique species that have had millions of years to adapt to our fragile existence on a variable and harsh landscape are being wiped out in record levels.

(image: CSIRO - soil erosion)

Forests

Of an original 235 million hectares of Australia’s forests and woodlands, 44% or about 104 million hectares have been cleared since European settlement. 36% was cleared before 1972 and 5% after 1972 – representing 85.7 million and 11.5 million hectares respectively
The clearing has been offset by the regrowth of 2.9% of the original cleared area.

In the absence of clearing, forest and woodland losses are presumed to be due to causes such as fire, drought or disease like die-back. Non-clearing losses have accounted for 5% of the area changed in the last 20 years.

Of the 50.5% of forests and woodlands that have not been cleared or lost due to non-clearing events, 20.5% were converted to non-forest at some point after 1972 and are therefore in disturbed condition.

Humans in Australia

By 2100, Australian population is projected to be between 42 and 70 million people. Total consumption per person in Australia is one of the highest in the world, and is projected to increase by up to 27% by 2030, with far-reaching impacts on nature including biodiversity, land use, climate and water.

By 2050, energy consumption in Australia is projected to increase by around 21%, with only 14% coming from renewable sources.

As you read through the data you will see our natural world is struggling to sustain itself. Nature is in decline and the natural beauty of Australia is under threat.

Firstly, in Australia we have neither a comprehensive picture of the health of nature, nor a complete understanding of the impacts of any decline in nature on our own wellbeing. We may be intellectually and technologically the most "advanced" and highly evolved species on the planet, but we must be the most retarded species when it comes to being aware of our own impacts on our life-supporting habitats for ourselves, and other species in our ecosystems.

Second, our institutions, globally and in Australia, are not optimized to address the increasingly complex and and the importance of adopting broader definitions of integrated challenges arising at the interface of social, sustainable wellbeing as a frame for effectively valuing
economic, technological and environmental concerns5. and protecting nature.

Human intellect remains myopic and shallow when it comes to the health of the environment, and our own spaceship Earth! Our governments' and institutions' tunnel-vision, based on short-term greed and economic benefits rather than long term strategies for living sustainably, and within Nature's limits.

Third, our understanding and definition of human wellbeing may be far too narrow. Some people and groups may be doing extraordinary things for nature, inspiring us all to better value and protect what we have, but they remain voices in the wilderness, on the peripheral, not in the mainstream. Animal species may impact on their environment, but not so that it can't spring back and recover! Humans, on the other hand, seem to incapable of limiting their desire to take more than they can, and it's justified by "economic growth", greed, traditions and culture!

Finally, the term ‘sustainability’ is used far too loosely in regard to humanity’s impact on nature. Depending on the context, it is often not measured, is poor. The word is too subjective, vague, and has been over-used and has become an oxymoron. The word has been stuck on almost any implementation or institution, including human growth, and thus a contradiction!

Population growth

"The most influential driving forces on nature are population growth and developments in the needs and activities of individuals, as expressed through material extraction and consumption. Population is projected to grow up to 42-70 million by 2100.”
So, our dying ecosystems, and diminishing natural resources, will be deliberately further stretched by governments tweaking our population growth through high and unsustainable rates of immigration! It expecting a moribund body, in the throes of death, forced to keep breaking stones and climb mountains!

Our population is projected to increase to between 36.8 million and 48.3 million in 2061, and reach between 42.4 million and 70.1 million in 2101 (Figure 3)33. The projected development of infrastructure (e.g. housing, transport, water supply, energy, communications) strongly correlates with anticipated population growth, reflecting the longstanding pattern of association among these variables. Of course, the report does not mention that our population growth is not due to natural growth, of births over deaths, but due to a bipartisan policy of "big Australia", high rates of net overseas immigration, and housing - a major industry in Australia!

To add to the slow death of our environment, the pain will be exacerbated by Australia consuming more resources per person than most
other nations on Earth. We consume about 35 tonnes per person per year. By contrast, an emerging nation like India consumes about 5 tonnes per person, while the US and 2.5 Japan consume about 28 tonnes.

The report concludes that while there is currently no long-term plan for the future sustainable development of Australian society, there is a growing movement of passionate and active communities across Australia, taking action to ensure their own futures.
These actions are collaborative, innovative and proactive, and gathering momentum by the day.

However, these groups passionate for change and for our nation's environment are usually sidelined, or marginalized, due to our limited democratic system, and an economic model based on capitalistic growth, and short-term gain at the cost of the welfare of future generations of all species. The "party" is over, and Australia's growth-based economy based on increasing consumerism must end - or we wreck the land that gives us food, water, sustenance, functioning ecosystems, and all that we "love" about our country!

(image: CSIRO Salinity affected land )

Glen Klatovsky – Director was National Campaigner for The Wilderness Society, leading the campaign to stop a gas hub at James Price Point. Glen was the Carbon Business Manager for Greening Australia. He was also Director, Advocacy for WWF-Australia.

The plain truth:

- 10,000 years ago humans and our livestock occupied just 0.01% of all the land-air vertebrate biomass on earth.
- Now humans and our livestock occupy 97% of all land-air vertebrate biomass.
- Humans and our livestock now consume over 40% of earth’s annual green land biomass production.
- 1 million people born every 4½ days. People live longer.

What does this mean?
- 50% of All Vertebrate Species will be gone by 2040.

There is no embed function for the following film, but it is very worth looking at:

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/7350/Call-of-Life--Facing-the-Mass-Extinctiony

What have we done?

- 90% of Big Ocean Fish gone since 1950.
- 50% of Great Barrier Reef gone since 1985.
- 50% of Fresh Water Fish gone since 1987.
- 30% of Marine Birds gone since 1995.
- 28% of Land Animals gone since 1970.
- 28% of All Marine Animals gone since 1970.
- 50% of Human Sperm Counts gone since 1950.
- 90% of Lions gone since 1993.
- 90% of Monarch Butterflies gone since 1995.
- 93 Elephants killed every single day.
- 2-3 Rhinos killed every single day.
- Bees die from malnutrition lacking bio-diverse pollen sources.
- Extinctions are 1000 times faster than normal.

What’s going to happen to us?

- Ocean acidification doubles by 2050.
- Ocean acidification triples by 2100.
- We are on track in just 13 years to lock in a near term 6°C earth temp rise.
- Mass Extinction will become unstoppable and irreversible in 40 years.
- Permian mass extinction of 95% of life took 60,000 years 250 million years ago.
- Dinosaurs mass extinction took 33,000 years after asteroid impact.
- Anthropogenic mass extinction will take 300 years max.
- This mass extinction is 100x faster than anything before us.
- Antarctic meltdown now irreversible and unstoppable.
- Arctic methane burst is irreversible and unstoppable within current system.
- It takes 10 times as much rated “green” energy to displace 1 unit of fossil energy.
- Efficiency and conservation only causes more growth within our current system.
World Bank says we have 5-10 years before we all fight for food and water.

What we are doing right now!

- We combine bacteria DNA with plant DNA and eat it.
- We are eating stuff that never, ever existed on earth before.
- We put man-made, computer designed, synthetic DNA into our food.
- We put nano metals and nano particles into our food.
- We put poisonous pesticides and herbicides directly into food cells.
- There are thousands of different chemicals in our foods.
- We are turning into genetic mutants because of our food.
- We are wiping out all life on earth because of our food.
- After mass extinction, genetically modified trees may be all we leave behind.

WHY THERE IS NO GREEN ENERGY

Our “green” energy hi-tech future requires:

- conflict minerals,
- rare earth elements,
- heavy metals,
- nano metals and graphite.

Search for “rare earth mining in China” on YouTube and see what special hell your solar panels and wind turbines produce in Mongolia. China can do this because they have undercut all the world’s production of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) with low wages, low currency and no environmental enforcement. They can do this because they ignore the radioactive thorium that comes with mining high-value, heavy rare earth elements. Rare earth elements can’t profitably be mined outside of China without using radioactive thorium, the mining by-product found with heavy rare earth elements. We can’t afford to mine REEs while treating thorium as radioactive waste instead of as a profitable energy source. Burning thorium will pay for heavy REEs and provide the low-carbon base power “green” energy requires.

Graphite is used in all of our so-called “green” powered batteries and is mined in China emitting deadly fine air particles resulting in a lethal smog that washes down from the skies in an ash laden rain that covers crops and water. China recently shut down several graphite mines because of the pervasive smog. Graphene, a nano-material produced for batteries, is water soluble and can cut through human/animal cells. Both graphite dust and graphene are deadly to humans because of their small size. You don’t want to breathe this stuff.

"The Catch22 of Energy Storage" (Energy Collective article)

Solar cell manufacturing produces 3 green house gases that are over 10,000 times worse than C02. They require all kinds of deadly liquid acids to manufacture. Solar panels lose efficiency at the rate of 1% per year lasting 20-25 years. The expensive inverters they require have to be replaced every 5 to 10 years up to 4 times over the life of the panel. The new thin cell panels use nano materials and are even more toxic with shorter lifespans. It doesn’t matter how “clean” the latest experimental solar panels are because existing manufacturing plants will stay open to recoup major investments. Manufacturing just five wind turbines produces 1 ton of radioactive residue and 75 tons of toxic, acidic water used to leach out the required neodymium. Wind turbines only work at 25% of their rated capacity 90% of the time. Over 2 million children died in the Congo for the conflict minerals green energy needs. Thousands of people die in Chinese mines every year for the minerals green energy needs. Prof. Jian Shuisheng of the Jiatong-University estimates the production of just 6 solar panels requires one ton of coal. Since green power is intermittent, it would take at least 10 times the rated amount of “green” energy to displace just one equivalent unit of 24/7 fossil energy because your so-called 100 Watt solar panel delivers zero Watts at night and batteries are heavy toxic $energy hogs. One company in the U.S. cut down 5 acres of trees to build a solar farm to power a plant for the production of plastic bags. Green power will not be enough. Part-time energy and billions of batteries adds up to death to all life on earth just from destructive ecological inertia.

Ozzie Zehner explains “Green Illusions” in a series called, "Talks at Google":

Tim Garrett explains why in a three-part lecture:

- one dollar equals 10 milliwatts
- why we can’t decouple growth from emissions.
- why efficiency & conservation leads to more energy growth.

Did you know that the new $2 billion Ivanpah solar plant in the Mojave desert is a death ray that ignites birds in mid flight? When their bodies fall to the ground, they leave smoky trails in the sky called streamers. These birds are attracted to the bugs who are attracted to the shiny, pretty lights, just like us. It is estimated as many as 30,000 birds per year will die this way during huge migrations at just this one green power plant. Bigger solar plants of the same type are in the works including one near Joshua Tree, next to a wildlife sanctuary. During Ivanpah’s construction, up to 3,000 endangered desert tortoises suffered a temporary loss of legal protection and were allowed to be killed by heavy diesel equipment and materials. Thousands of slave workers die in China’s mines every single year to help produce the exotic minerals used in its construction. This is referred to as the “Green Economy”. If we changed the whole planet to green power, we would kill the earth we call home.

Civilization is slowly collapsing while the earth is quickly dying. My credentials? I cut grass in a trailer park in Canada.

Shallow policy-making based on economic health at the detriment of the majority of the people of Australia is about pandering to the the "needs" of big businesses and those who benefit from growth.

The impacts are not only on people, but on animals.

Non-humans are usually ignored in the economic-growth paradigm that dominates policy making today. “Sustainability” is often referred to as being about ensuring comfortable human survival, and not other species.

The Ponzi-economic growth-based rational not only displaced existing people as the pyramid becomes larger at wealthier at the top, but displaces non-humans.

Land clearing and agriculture

Agriculture, land-clearing, logging, urban sprawl, roads, introduced and feral animals all result in wildlife habitat destruction.  Increased noise, pollution, traffic, and crime also means that animals come under threat from contacts with humans.   Our mammal extinction rate is the highest in the world, and Australia's rich natural heritage of biodiversity is under threat from more extinctions.  

Habitat loss is their greatest threat as more land is being made available for human "carrying capacity". As several large-scale scientific studies have confirmed, severe environmental degradation is taking place due to animal farming. Animal farming for meat, leather, and milk is depleting our natural resources at an alarming rate.

Green-house gas emissions from animal farms are a major contributor to global warming. Enormous amounts of water and plant food is required to produce meat. It is estimated that about 100,000 litres of water, 100 kilogram of hay, and 4 kilogram of grain is required to produce just one kilogram of meat.
The quality of life for animals suffers, with factory-farming that becomes more inhumane in order to feed so many people.

Greater human-animal contact.

As our urban boundaries continue to expand, livestock, wildlife and pets also come into more contact with people.  This means they are more and more under threat from thrill-killings, theft and interference.
Kangaroos are reportedly being tortured on a weekly basis due to increasing population growth in the Peel region, with one animal being found torn in two after being tied to two separate cars.

There is a constant push by governments for ever increasing population growth to drive economies, despite the fact that animal habitats are being decimated and many areas of the world, including Australia, are struggling to provide enough water for the existing population.

Associate Professor Eleonora Gullone from the School of Psychiatry and Psychology said the number of inhumane acts committed against kangaroos and domesticated animals over the past two years in Whittlesea ( a high growth area of Victoria) was concerning. There is evidence that kangaroos are disliked by farmers and rural property owners, she said.

High population growth and social disunity go hand in hand with tensions, crime, displacement and homelessness, and these factors all make animals ideal and silent victims social dis-ease. Kangaroos are our national iconic animals, and landholders have been pandered to too much by our DSE and permits to get rid of them are far too easily handed out.

Increasing demand for livestock products.

  Population growth means increasing demand for livestock products such as dairy, eggs and meats.  Livestock are under pressure to produce more, but to save costs and space, they are being confined in factory farms.  This means mutilations to stop their "aggression", antibiotics in their foods, increased risks of zoo noses(disease originating from animals), methane gas emissions, pollution to waterways and soils,  and declining animal welfare standards.

In the mid-twentieth century, exponential population growth was noticed early and taken seriously enough to spur a dramatic acceleration of global food production from the 1940s onwards. Traditional farming practices and traditional crop varieties were displaced as farming became intensive: the birth of industrial agriculture or factory farming occurred on a massive scale. Not only animals, but we too will feel like factory-farmed chickens squashed into metropolitan areas where housing is becoming more dense.

Companion animals and human densities.

Pets are good for children as it teaches them social skills and to have empathy with animals.  However, being forced into high density living denies children the ability to thrive, and to have the full benefits of space and room to raise animals for companionship.   It's a formula for mental illness and less active children, more prone to obesity and diabetes. Many elderly people rely on companion animals too.  Due to more people renting and moving into animal-hostile lifestyles, more draconian "management" of homeless animals is being considered.   Pets become the waste products of society when they can't be accommodated. They are doomed to the rubbish-bin of “death row”. Our cities are becoming more removed from the natural world.

Overfishing:

Mulloway (Argyrosomus japonicus) occur in estuarine and coastal waters surrounding Australia, Africa, India, Pakistan, China, Korea and Japan. In Australia they are a highly targeted iconic fish species due to their large size, attractive silver coloration and good eating. Reported commercial catches of mulloway in New South Wales show a steady and substantial decline from 380 tonnes in 1973/74 to 60 tonnes in 2005/06.

NSW DPI Narrandera Fisheries Centre research scientist, Dr Lee Baumgartner, said a film crew visited the Riverina region last year to film the documentary and raise awareness about issues facing the iconic Murray cod.

“Over the years Murray cod have suffered substantially due to overfishing, habitat loss, poor water quality, pest species and river regulation,” he said.

Overfishing has drastically reduced the numbers of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The world's oceans have been experiencing enormous blooms of jellyfish, apparently caused by overfishing, declining water quality, and rising sea temperatures. Now, scientists are trying to determine if these outbreaks could
represent a "new normal" in which jellyfish increasingly supplant fish. By removing a curb on jellyfish population growth, overfishing "opens up ecological space for jellyfish," says Anthony Richardson.

A seeming increase in shark attacks worldwide may well have a human cause, with low-cost air travel, but also overpopulation, overfishing and even climate change among the hidden suspects, say experts. The experts behind the Australian Shark Attack File argue that the enormous increase in the size of the Australian population over the last century has contributed to the increase in numbers of overall shark attacks (including non-fatal attacks). The shark is under relentless attack from humans themselves.

A third of open-water shark species, including the great white and the hammerhead, are facing extinction, driven in part by demand in Asia for shark-fin soup, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Loss of biodiversity

The monocultural practices of modern agricultural methods have been the driving force behind this loss of genetic diversity. Monoculture is the practice of broad scale cropping using the one variety of plant.

Globally, more than 5,000 wildlife species are threatened with extinction. Some 25% are mammals, and 11% birds. Of the reptile, amphibian and fish species described as threatened, 20% are reptiles, 25% are amphibians and 34% are fish.

Biodiversity loss is one of the world's most pressing crises and there is growing global concern about the status of the biological resources on which so much of human life depends.
It has been estimated that the current species extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be. - IUCN

Our duty of care to the animal kingdom is being compromised by excessive population growth.

Few of us realise that the main cause of the current environmental crisis is human nature.
All we're doing is what all other creatures have ever done to survive, expanding into whatever territory is available and using up whatever resources are available, just like a bacterial culture growing in a Petri dish till all the nutrients are used up.

Our growth means the world in which rampant consumption in rich countries, and over population in developing countries, is rapidly outstripping the global resources.

Ultimately, the loss of biodiversity will result in a dead, cruel and sterile planet in which local or regional ecosystems have collapsed.

With 2236 people arriving every week in Victoria - 1800 of those moving to Melbourne
Why buy east when you can Mumbai west? 11/9 The Age there is scant recognition of the amount of infrastructure needed to support these numbers.

Point Cook is called "Mumbai Cook". According to the article: one of Melbourne's newest suburbs tells an old migration story that echoes the history of places like Carlton's Little Italy - Lygon Street - or Richmond's mini Saigon - Victoria Street.

Comparing Melbourne's multicultural imprints of Victoria Street and Lygon street and Richmond simplify and hide the real issues here. It is the reluctance of our political leaders to acknowledge the world's global threats, and the impact of on-going and limitless population growth on an already stretched Australia's resources. Our wide and open spaces are being turned into housing estates!

What was stimulating in the past, and helped us create an economy of scale, is now toppling our population over the point no return, and human numbers will keep increasing.

Delhi and Mumbai rank among the world's top most populated cities. Mumbai, with a population of 20.4 million, occupies fourth place behind Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Undoubtedly, like in Australia, urban sprawl will keep continuing and real estate prices keep increasing. Property in Mumbai is already some of the most expensive in the world, and no doubt there are some great positives about the city, and some have become wealthy!

Everybody is searching for good jobs in Mumbai for earning money that can helps them to survive their life. But many of the people are unable to get the job even if they are talented and meritorious. Currently Mumbai stands communally far more polarised in terms of population distribution than ever before, and this is one of the primary reasons for the presence of crime in the society. The burgeoning crime rates to the fact that more and more unemployment has been created after the shutting down of the textile mills in and around the city. In India, religious and caste divisions generally coincide with economic divides, and these give rise to an amplified form of social division.

The city's crime graph, like its burgeoning population, is also rapidly rising: over the last decade the city has witnessed a 52% rise in crime.

Sankar Chatterjee, curator of paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech University says that a meteorite more than 25 miles wide hurtling toward Earth at 36,000 miles per hour and caused massive destruction. In fact, the exact scenario played out 65 million years ago near present-day Mumbai, India, and could be the smoking gun that ended the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth.

The sixth extinction can't be blamed on meteorites but to human overpopulation!

Bringing Mumbai to Victoria's west is about importing this global threat to Australia. Despite the converging threats of climate change, peak oil, peak soil, extinctions, rising costs of water, power and infrastructure needed to maintain our lifestyles, growth continues!

Urban sprawl means additional infrastructure are needed for power, water, increased transport and health costs, not to mention the increase in greenhouse gas emissions!

The Australian Conservation Foundation has called for clear goals to stabilise our population, saying that a rising population will make it much harder to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, restore our rivers, biodiversity and soils to health and ensure a good quality of life for everyone.

Infrastructure spending will always be inadequate in keeping up with such high growth.

However, the tremendous financial and political power of the growth-lobby is far greater than the threat of anthropogenic climate change, or any global or local environmental or sustainability concerns.

Peter Garrett last week announced $260,000 will be spent on an urgent bid to save the Orange-Bellied Parrot from extinction.

Under the Federal Government plan, captive populations will be boosted and extra feed and nesting options will be provided to encourage the 50 or so parrots left in the wild to breed.

(orange bellied parrot: source Wikimedia Commons).

The Orange-bellied Parrot is a migratory bird, which breeds only in coastal south-west Tasmania and spends the winter in coastal Victoria and South Australia. In Tasmania it occurs in buttongrass moorland interspersed with patches of forest or tea tree scrub.

Ecologist Peter Menkhorst, a spokesman for an existing 15-member recovery team, said the wild population was expected to disappear in the near future, placing enormous pressure on a captive breeding program. He said breeding rates had declined, possibly because of food shortages linked to the drought. However, it is easy to blame “drought” when loss of habitat is the surest way to lose a species!

Auditor General, Mr Des Pearson , in 2009 condemned that the Victorian Government for having few and unreliable statistics and was not fulfilling its legal obligations under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. The report found that efforts to list threatened species and processes had not been matched by efforts to develop action statements, monitor them, or assess their effectiveness.

It is not only orange-bellied parrots that are under threat of extinction. The state’s threatened species list includes some of our most iconic. A 15-year study shows Victorian bird numbers are collapsing throughout central and northern Victoria, with about two-thirds of species, including lorikeets, thornbills, honeyeaters and even kookaburras, declining dramatically in the past five years. (For those in Victoria, you can Take Action Now on the web page).

Bald Hill wind farm in Victoria is notorious for being rejected by then Environment Minister Ian Campbell in 2006 due to the threat to the orange-bellied parrot. This token gesture was later over-ruled!

Ironically, the much-delayed Bald Hills wind, near the Wonthaggi desalination plant, was sold to Japanese interests, Mitsui, for $300 million and will operate from 2011, five years after former environment minister Ian Campbell caved in and belatedly approved the project. As well, Japanese firms have taken a stake in paper (Australian Paper), smallgoods manufacturing (Hans), IT (Kaz Group) and the housing sector (Payce Consolidated). Foreign investors are not likely to be interested in Australian biodiversity or species extinctions!

Water Minister Tim Holding dismissed environmental concerns about the desalination plant and said penguins, seals, whales, orange-bellied parrots, giant Gippsland earthworms, hooded plovers and their habitats would not be significantly affected by the project and nearby dinosaur fossils were also safe. That's reassuring from someone who has no environmental expertise or training!

(saltmarsh coastline typical in Australia source: Wikimedia commons).

Many coastal habitats, including coastal saltmarsh areas, are often looked upon as 'wasteland' and bulldozed to make way for industrial developments or housing estates. Orange-bellied parrots spend their winters in such coastal saltmarsh, typically on the shores of estuaries and lagoons.

The parrot, which breeds exclusively in a small area on Tasmania's West Coast, was listed as critically endangered in 2006 and it is feared it could now become extinct by 2013.

The main factors contributing to the loss of Orange-bellied Parrot habitat are:

Let’s talk about the national anthem: We do not have boundless plains to share!

Australia’s national anthem is outdated,
incorrect and should be changed according to the environment group Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

National President of SPA, Sandra Kanck, says “If we pause on Australia Day to reflect on our identity, our thoughts should turn to reforming the anthem. It is an absolute nonsense to say that this continent has boundless plains to share, as is claimed in the second verse of the anthem.

“This is deceptive advertising,” she says. “Anyone one enquiring about the offer might find their choice was between the Hay Plain and the Nullarbor Plain.

“Our soil is not golden – it is in fact old, thin and lacking fertility. Every dust-storm blows more precious top-soil out to sea. Only six percent of our land is arable, and we are progressively building over much of that six percent.

“If we ever did have an abundance of ‘nature’s gifts’ we have made a mockery of them with our shocking record on mammal extinctions.

“We have so little respect for the seas with which we are ‘girt’ that we pollute them with run-off, and within those same seas we are overfishing towards extinction of the marine life.

“We have so little regard for this land that we have overloaded it with human beings. Hence, we are fast destroying our rivers and forests and reducing our biodiversity.

“Reflecting on the words of our national anthem might help us take stock and recognise what has already been destroyed, and what might be saved.

“But we cannot in conscience continue to sing these words with any pride because so many of them are untrue.

“If we continue using Advance Australia Fair then we must at least change the line ‘We’ve boundless plains to share’. Boundless they may be, but with no shade and temperatures above 45 degrees in summer, no water, and empty salt pans that deceptively look like lakes on our maps, these plains are not habitable.

“Let’s have a national anthem that reflects our aspirations and that sings of Australia’s unique natural assets but, also, let’s not lie to the world about their nature” said Ms Kanck.

Thargomindah's “Invasion” of kangaroos and emus

According to a new report a “plague” of kangaroos has descended on the outback Queensland town of Thargomindah in search of food and water due to the drought. Residents of the small town in Queensland have been subject to a “biblical invasion” of kangaroos and emus over the past few days and it’s causing quite a stir in this small outback community.

Map of Thargomindah

Bulloo Mayor John Ferguson says the shire has been struggling with drought since 2001 and conditions are probably the worst they have been in more than 40 years. Councillor Ferguson says most graziers have destocked their properties because there is no feed left, even for kangaroos or emus.

The Burke and Wills 'Dig Tree', 300 km west, tells a story of explorer misfortune, bad luck and bad timing. It was under the shade of this Coolabah tree on the Banks of Cooper Creek that the explorers established their Base Camp in November of 1860. This town was the first in Australia and the third in the world to have street lighting generated by hydro power back in 1893.

“Swarm” proportions

According to a local farmer, “they’re swarm proportions, you have no idea, it gives you a creepy feeling when you see them that thick”. He also says that despite good rain to the east, none fell west of Thargomindah and Eromanga. The “plague” or “curse” is not the kangaroos!

The “exploding kangaroo population” in Thargomindah Queensland, apparently, is because Russia has banned the sale of roo meat.  It sounds like the kangaroo industry pushing their own agenda! The media has reported stupid things like a a woman who was too scared to hang her washing out because of the kangaroo coming close to the town, implying very strongly that they are creating a safety problem as well!

Apart from the emotive and derogatory wording, the situation is indicative of the condition of Australia. Apparently Tharomindah's population of 250 are so “run over” that there are five roos for every person! The local sergeant claimed it was not the first time they had been “ender siege” from the kangaroos!

Clearly, they see their national symbols as the threat, and they on alert for a war against these generally gentle animals.

Theromindah's worst drought in 50 years has hardened hearts against their indigenous inhabitants

Tharomindah is having the worst drought in 50 years and it has left the region desolate.
The temperature reached 41 degrees Celsius recently and Bulloo Mayor John Ferguson says the onset of hot conditions is a huge worry for landholders.

When farmers remove stock from their paddocks because of lack of feed, many of them add urea to the water troughs to kill any kangaroos that come to drink.

If our wildlife are the canaries in the mine, then surely this is a very dire situation and indicative of the terrible toll under which our environment, due to drought and climate change, are under. The industry propaganda states that currently kangaroos are starving to death, and it's kinder to shoot them.

Climate change is exacerbating existing threats

Climate change may happen too quickly for some species to adapt and may exacerbate existing threats such as land clearance, farming and pollution. Australian species with biological traits that make them susceptible to change, or with restricted habitats, are particularly vulnerable to extinction.

Australia already has the worst rate of mammal extinction in the world. Almost 40 per cent of mammal extinctions globally in the last 200 years have occurred in Australia. This incredible continent is losing species at an unprecedented rate and, as most species found here aren’t found anywhere else, the loss of Australian species is a loss for the whole world.

Two of the four species that are extinct on the mainland survive today on a few offshore islands. This trend of extinction and isolation may continue as a result of climate change.

At the time of European settlement the Bridled Nail-Tail Wallaby was a common species.  It now survives in only five percent of the area it once inhabited. They are the only species of rock-wallaby in Victoria, and were once found in large numbers in rocky areas prior to European settlement.

There were once 10,000,000 Mala Hare Wallabies right across Australia in arid and semi-arid areas. The species is now considered to be extinct in the wild.

The list of extinctions of once “common” species is a deadly roll call. Yet, people still don't understand or have compassion for today's common species.

Six macropod species are extinct, 7 are endangered

Out of our 49 macropod species, 6 have become extinct, 7 are endangered and 10 classed as vulnerable due to their small population in restricted areas, and numbers of the remaining species are killed annually.

Incessant and unsustainable commercial shooting has decimated kangaroo populations throughout rural Australia.

A new study published in the December issue of the University of Chicago’s Physiological and Biochemical Zoology found that an increase in average temperature of only two degrees Celsius could have a devastating effect on populations of Australia’s iconic kangaroos.

Authors Euan G. Ritchie and Elizabeth E. Bolitho of James Cook University in Australia say that generally accepted climate models predict temperatures in northern Australia to be between 0.4 and two degrees warmer by 2030, and between two and six degrees warmer by 2070.  Ritchie and Bolitho found that a two-degree temperature increase may shrink its range by 89 percent.
They found that a temperature increase as small as a half-degree Celsius may shrink kangaroos’ geographic ranges.  Pasture and water holes drying up  "may result in starvation and failed reproduction … or possible death due to dehydration for those species that are less mobile.”

We have the highest number of livestock per head in the world! Kangaroos are scapegoats and being vilified for livestock damage and the lack of willingness of landholders to tolerate any animals other than livestock on their land.

Language of hate and fear

The description of kangaroos as a “plague” and a threat is disgraceful and disrespectful of our national icons. People think that kangaroos are indestructible, but climate change and the drought are obviously taking its toll on our wildlife.

The lack of compassion and fear is really astounding! Livestock eat much more than kangaroos, and are clearing our land of trees and native pasture. If they are desperate for food and water, they are indicative of what is to become of Australia - a sterile, hot and dry lifeless desert!

They don't deserve to be begrudged some food.

Bridled Nail Tail Wallaby was a common species.